Thursday, February 14, 2013

Nemo

We are told that last Friday evening’s blizzard, known as
Nemo, was a once-in-a-century event. Well, yes, but notice how many of these we seem to be getting nowadays. I have never experienced
anything remotely like it. Here in New Haven, a fraction more than thirty-four
inches of snow fell in twenty-four hours, but neighboring Hamden got more than
forty. Certainly the snow that drifted along the front of my house in the Westville neighborhood was much
deeper than three feet, more like six. It is not difficult to describe the
fundamental difference between an ordinary snow storm and a blizzard. Storm has
always struck me as a misnomer. When it merely snows there is a delicious quiet,
a softness, an atmosphere almost of calm not unlike the effect of a blanket—provided
you are safely tucked up in bed, or sitting by the fire with a cup of tea and a
good book. A blizzard, by contrast, has teeth, fangs, claws. The snow starts to behave like
grit against doors and window-panes. It penetrates nooks and crannies. It scrapes and mauls. There is a howl in the wind, and a
sinister air of real danger. Walking in a snow storm can be pleasant, if at
times hard work. Trudging through a blizzard is hazardous. You cannot see.
Your footing is at best uncertain. The cold is especially severe. You
must seek shelter. Nothing better accounts for the practical purpose and
life-saving rationale of the covered bridges of New England than a
fully-fledged blizzard. On Saturday morning the impact of Nemo was almost
overwhelming in its scale. Dozens of snow plows, emergency vehicles and cop cars lay
abandoned in city streets like so many woolly mammoths. The streets were
impassable, even on foot. Plucky citizens began to shovel, but as the city’s
monster digging equipment began to carve single-lane canyons through the middle
of the main arteries their efforts were largely annulled or even reversed because of the
immense walls of snow thrown up on either side. On Monday it began to
rain and, the drains being blocked with snow, the whole concoction began to
settle into deep, frigid puddles, soon to become sullen floes of ice, exceedingly unhelpful.
Still the city chugged ahead. The Governor temporarily lifted a ban on dumping
snow into Long Island Sound because there really was nowhere else to put it.
Now, nearly a week later, a small army of diggers, earth moving equipment and
dump trucks are still loading up with immense quantities of snow, gradually clearing the streets and
parking lots. The university was closed for classes on Monday and Tuesday,
something that through 312 years is almost unheard-of. I must say that the citizens of New Haven exhibited extraordinary patience, forbearance, generosity, and good cheer amid the
most trying circumstances. Frustrating though it is to be holed up for days on
end, and to experience the onset of cabin fever, most people were philosophical—merely
breathing silent prayers lest the snow and ice on the roof formed a destructive
ice dam, or worse. The excellent Tony Maratea managed to carve me out a portion
of my drive in which to park, and also a little path to the back door, but I
have no idea how on earth he will clear the rest of it. Forget the snow-blower, this
requires at least a Bobcat. In the meantime, we continue to install our exhibition, and have really only lost two working days as a consequence of the
blizzard. Only two weeks to go, but I am sure we will get the job done.

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About Me

Angus Trumble will begin work as Director of the National Portrait Gallery of Australia on February 10, 2014. He has been Senior Curator of Paintings and Sculpture at the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut, since May 2003.
Angus is the author of a number of books, including A Brief History of the Smile and The Finger: A Handbook, which has lately been published in New York by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, in London by Yale University Press, and by Melbourne University Publishing. He is an occasional contributor to the Burlington Magazine, Apollo, and a more regular one to The Times Literary Supplement, the Australian Book Review, and Esopus Magazine.